


If You Try Sometimes

by Stayawhile



Series: Words and Deeds [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stayawhile/pseuds/Stayawhile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>According to the few who know anything about him, Mycroft Holmes sees life as a game, himself as a International Master calmly moving the chess pieces around the board, controlling who wins and who loses.  </p><p>Only a handful of people know he’s more than that.</p><p> </p><p>Part 3 of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/21412">Words and Deeds.</a>  Ideally, these should be read in order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Try Sometimes

The camp is dusty and ugly and full of sorrow. After fourteen months in Kismaya, he has seen nothing of Africa but its children, dying slowly of malnutrition and malaria, or quickly of cholera and measles. Simple things, easily curable, except in this desolate place of not enough—not enough water, medicine, food, hope. Sad-eyed mothers come to him, listless children in their arms, and he can handle their despair far more easily than their pleading gazes. Barely sleeping, eating whatever is put in front of him, he focuses only on thework. There is always more work, more patients to see or makeshift facilities to repair.

It suits him. It keeps him from thinking about London. Loss drowns in a sea of loss.

 

He lifts the flap and enters Delphine’s “office,” wiping sweat from his brow with a dusty sleeve. “Supplies coming?” he asks. “Please tell me they’ll be here before tomorrow, because we’re low on antibiotics and I’d really like to head off another pneumonia epidemic.” He flops down in a chair before she can wave her hand toward it.

“How are you, Jean?” Her English is fluent, but her accent hasn’t diminished among the mostly French staff. There are a few Americans and a pair of recently arrived Dutch nurses who seem to be a couple, but since Donby’s departure, John is the only Brit.

“Fine. Tired. The usual. Supplies?” Delphine smiles. In her late forties, tough, sun-bronzed, she somehow manages to wear her floppy canvas sunhat with Parisian flair. 

“Tomorrow, or the next day, if the roads permit. But there is more.” She taps her closed laptop. The dust is hell on any delicate equipment, so the few computers they have are used sparingly. “I have received a message regarding you, Jean Watson, and you are ordered to return to England. When the supply vehicles depart, you are to go with them. I am sorry.”

“What? Whose orders? I’m not—” John stops, sighs. “Bloody fucking Mycroft. It’s got to be. Bastard.” He brings his hands up to his face, but experience turned to instinct stops him from rubbing his eyes. 

Delphine’s voice is sympathetic. “The message is from Gaston Manseau, the new section directeur. This Mycroft, he does not mention, only your British government. He says the order is from the highest level. There is attached a message for you, which requires a password.”

He can hear a baby crying, and despite his anger he feels a certain happiness. The cry is angry and strong, the sound of a child who will not die. He reaches out, and Delphine hands him the laptop.

He doesn’t have to think about the password. He knows, types in the letters: S H E R L O C K.

To: John Watson  
From: Mycroft Holmes

There have been developments regarding SH. Please come to London.

He would refuse, except for one word. Please. Mycroft doesn’t ask, he orders, as insufferably imperious as his younger brother.

Two days later, he swings a small bag into the back of a rattletrap lorry and waves to Delphine. He wants to believe he will see her again, but something tells him he won’t.

 

He isn’t surprised to see Anthea, polished and sleek, waiting for him at Heathrow’s International Arrivals terminal. He is, however, a little shocked when the back door of the expected long black car opens and Mycroft himself is in the back seat.

“Dr. Watson, welcome back.”

“Mycroft. What the fuck is going on?” John sinks into contoured leather, the smoothness and luxury disorienting as the car glides into traffic. Mycroft’s world, not his, and he knows enough to be on his guard, but after the long flight and the longer year behind him, such comfort is seductive.

“To the point as always. I think you’ll want a drink first,” Mycroft says, pouring amber liquid from a cut-crystal decanter into a glass. John turns it in his hand, watching the color change as bars of light and shadow pass the window. He’s jet-lagged, crumpled and grimy, and he’s not sure drinking is a good idea. Dealing with Mycroft requires more alertness and caution than he can muster right now. 

On the other hand, it would be a shame to waste the sort of scotch Mycroft can afford. He swallows, tries not to cough. The other man is watching him, and John can’t read his expression. 

“My brother was always a good liar,” Mycroft remarks. “He’s been manipulating everyone around him since he learned to speak.”

John doesn’t want to hear it. “Runs in the family, does it?” He takes another sip. “I want to know why I’m here, though I suppose I shouldn’t believe a word you say.” He looks out the window, away from Mycroft’s proper posture, his perfectly fitted suit. The car weaves in and out of traffic, sleek and sharklike.

“You won’t believe me. You’ve seen solid evidence proving that what I’m about to tell you is a lie, and you’ve no reason to trust me. In fact, I was asked to keep this particular truth from you, but I don’t always do what I’m asked.” Mycroft’s voice is lacking its usual underlying note of sarcasm, and John hates him, hates his mind games and his power plays and his bloody bespoke tailoring and really, just everything about him. 

“Just say it. This is another of your games, so get on with it.”

Mycroft finds it harder to say than he expected. “Sherlock is alive.”

John laughs. The cruelty of it strikes him like a blow, and he laughs, keeps laughing because he can’t stop even though he is sobbing, because it isn’t, it can’t be true, no matter how much he wants it to be. 

 

He wakes up in a strange bed. The room is large, with high ceilings and elaborate draperies in blue and cream stripes. He recognises the hazy sensation, realising he has been under sedation. That would explains why he doesn’t remember this room, or getting into this bed. 

A voice breaks in as he’s searching for his last memory. “I must apologise for sedating you, but you were hysterical and we couldn’t calm you.” Right, sedation confirmed, Mycroft’s voice, the car, and he said Sherlock was— He must have dreamed that bit. 

“You keep drugs in your car along with the scotch, then?” He struggles up onto his elbows, relieved to find he’s still fully dressed.

“Anthea is generally prepared for any situation,” says Mycroft dryly. 

“And what ‘situation’ required you to bring me to London and drug me into unconsciousness, Mycroft?” He’s as bad as his brother ever was, worse, crashing into John’s life and taking it over without ever bothering to tell him what the hell’s going on. 

“Again, I must apologise. I confronted you with the truth, and perhaps did so badly. I should have waited until you were rested.” Mycroft is actually fidgeting, and that makes John nervous. 

“You’re a liar, Mycroft. I won’t be used by you.” He sits up, swings his feet over the edge of the bed, trying to hide the fact that he’s a bit dizzy. As a doctor, he realises that he does need sleep, and probably food as well, but he’ll have to do without until he’s free of Mycroft’s clutches. Get out of here, get some food, call Harry, and then he’ll figure out why the hell he left Kismaya in the first place. There, that’s a plan.

Mycroft reaches for his arm, and John knocks it away. He makes it to the door, and though it’s heavy, dark carved wood, gets it open. That’s where he stops, because somewhere in the house, someone is playing the violin, and he’s flashing back to 221B Baker Street. It only lasts a moment, but it’s so vivid—blue silk dressing gown, slender fingers moving the bow across the strings with such precision—that it’s worse than any of his Afghanistan flashbacks.

The violin music continues, and John tries to calm himself. Someone’s playing a CD, that’s all. He steps out into the hallway, tries to figure out which way will get him to an exit. He’s angry now, he’s been drugged and manipulated and he’s sick of it. Mycroft puts a hand on his shoulder and he whirls around, fist raised. This is a bad idea. It sets the room spinning and he finds himself allowing Mycroft to guide him to a chair, because it’s slightly less humiliating than falling. 

Downstairs, the music halts, dissolving into a flurry of discordant scraping. So, so familiar, and John realises that for once, Mycroft Holmes actually did tell the truth. 

He takes several deep breaths, lets them out slowly. When he thinks he can control his voice again, he looks up at Mycroft, who is waiting for him, an odd expression on his face. In anyone else, he’d call it kindness.

“How?” he asks. “And why?” 

Mycroft explains, tells him that Sherlock faked his death in order to save his, John’s, life, explains the mechanics of how it was done, how Sherlock allowed everyone to believe he was a fraud and a suicide so that he could dismantle Moriarty’s organization once and for all. How he’d hunted down every sniper and assassin who’d been hired to kill him and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. He listens and it’s so sensational and absurd, so Sherlock, that it has to be true. 

He thinks he’s angry, but he’s worn out and confused and elated and it’s too much trouble to shout. He should have known that Sherlock would lie to him and leave him in the dark as part of some intricate scheme, and not know or care how much it would hurt him. 

John focuses on breathing. In, out. In, out. He is alive and Sherlock is alive, and that’s what matters, maybe that’s all that matters. “He’s here, isn’t he. That’s him downstairs, playing his violin.” It isn’t a question, but Mycroft nods in response. 

“I think you need some tea and a bit of food.” He pulls a phone from his pocket, pushes a button and speaks a few words. John doesn’t look at him. He thanks Anthea when she arrives with a tray. The tea is hot and tastes like England, the way tea never tasted in Africa, and he’s suddenly aware that he’s hungry. He makes short work of the biscuits and the cold, deep purple grapes.

When he’s finished, he puts his cup down and stands. “I want to see him,” he says. 

 

Sherlock is lying on the sofa, a tumble of long limbs with a violin on top. He’s staring at the ceiling as if it was some kind of vital clue, and it’s so reminiscent of 221B that John’s breath catches in his throat. He watches from the doorway for a moment, then moves quietly into the room.

“Sherlock?” he says, hating the way his voice sounds uncertain, as if this might be a mirage after all. 

When their eyes meet, John can read every expression that crosses Sherlock’s face. Disbelief, fear, hope, and then an unguarded joy that he’s never seen before. Sherlock stands, carefully setting the violin aside, and in three long strides he’s across the room with his arms around John, Sherlock who hates being touched, clutching him so tight that their bodies are pressed close together. Sherlock’s breath is warm against his ear. 

“John.” They stand still for a moment, just absorbing one another’s solid reality, and then Sherlock draws back, his hands on John’s shoulders, his cat-eyes searching John’s face. 

“Please don’t hate me, John. I lied to you and I’m sorry and—just—don’t hate me.” John is amazed at the emotion in his voice, a little confused by this new, raw version of his friend, and it occurs to him that if he is dreaming, he never wants to be awake. He places his hands at Sherlock’s waist, an unimaginable intimacy. It feels right, and Sherlock’s body tenses but doesn’t pull away. 

“I suppose I should be angry. It was a shitty thing to do, and I ought to be furious, but I’m not. Although I have to say, if you ever lie to me like that again, I will hunt you down and kill you.” 

Sherlock swallows. “Understood.” He licks his lips, and takes John’s hand, drawing him toward the sofa, pushing the violin aside so they can sit together. He takes a deep breath.

“John. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know if I can give you what you need. But you’re the only person who’s ever made me want to try. And I will try, if you’ll let me. I don’t want to hurt you, but I cannot be apart from you any more.” 

John doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s terrifying, in a way, to see Sherlock like this. He’s needy and open, asking instead of demanding. John will follow Sherlock anywhere, but right now, he realises, he has to lead. 

He brings his mouth up to Sherlock’s, and when their lips touch it’s barely a kiss, but it’s brilliant and real and true. John knows himself, knows that he’s broken and unfit for any sort of a normal relationship, but so is Sherlock, and somehow this makes sense. It won’t be easy or safe, but John has never wanted to be safe.

Sherlock’s gaze is curious and and excited at once, the way he looks when he’s crossing the police tape around a crime scene. “Interesting,” he says. “This merits further investigation,” and then they’re both laughing so hard they don’t hear the quiet click of the door closing. 

 

Out in the hallway, Mycroft Holmes stands very still. It’s risky, he knows. His brother is volatile and difficult and has enormous blind spots that he won’t acknowledge. There’s still a good chance that the two of them will tear each other to pieces, and it will be his fault. But he’s uncharacteristically optimistic. 

Anthea joins him, carrying a stack of files. “You have a full agenda for the afternoon,” she says. “Meeting with the Home Office at three on the Kensington situation, a memo marked “Confidential, eyes only” from Prince William, and the security report on Swanson is in. The car’s being brought around. Oh, and since I doubt the doctor will be returning to Africa, you’ll be signing a large cheque to Medecins Sans Frontieres.” 

“Fair enough,” he replies.

“You’re a good man, Mycroft Holmes,” Anthea says softly, inclining her head toward the door.” He raises his eyebrows.

 _Not often_ , he thinks. “Enough nonsense,” he tells her, and walks briskly ahead of her to the front door. “This country won’t run itself, you know.”


End file.
